I'm compelled to write this morning because a while ago, I said I'd blog seven times in April, and today is April 30th. This is my seventh post this month, and so after I hit publish, I will have met my completely arbitrary goal.

This activity--writing here even though I don't feel like it--highlights my best and worst quality. On the best days, my drive to do everything I said I would do AND everything anyone else thought or imagined I might do, looks just great.

I'm highly productive, put together, and accomplished! Wow! How impressive and gold star!

On my worst days? I'm competitive and obsessed. Also unforgiving, rigid, and judgmental. I might be wearing a pedometer hooked to my underwear or fretting at my desk over not writing the best social studies lessons of all time.

Other people are like this, right? Or, is there a way to not be like this?

Anyway, that's the April Blogging Challenge in the bag! Let's do this again soon.

Last month, I participated in a contest on Sheila's blog designed to motivate readers to work on their abs. Because I love winning more than is probably healthy, I did 135 minutes of abdominal exercises in August. That impressive total, combined with my partner's substantial effort, earned me a win in the contest.

Yay! I love winning!

And apparently a contest with no prize is enough to make the difference between 135 minutes in August and, uh, NO minutes so far in September.

Let's remedy that, shall we? Sheila asked me to host the ab contest this month, and here are the terms: you have to comment to say that you're playing, and then we'll work on the key to great abs: consistency. You have to do abs every-other day for the rest of the month starting on Monday the 15th or Tuesday the 16th (your choice), and you have to do five minutes per session. That's it! We'll have partners to increase the chances that we'll do it.

Post in the comments by Monday if you're playing. I hope you are. It probably won't be that terrible.